ST 2724

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2724

A full review by crypticsue

Thanks to Virgilius once again for another fine start to Sunday morning. This crossword appeared on Sunday 29 December – which means that the definition in 13a was relevant then, but isn’t now!!

Please leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.

ACROSS

1a Place for pictures taken from medicine man (6)
CINEMA is hidden in (taken from) mediCINE MAn.

4a Intermittently switch positions (3,3,2)
OFF AND ON – an adjective meaning occasional or intermittent can also refer to the two positions of a switch.

10a What singers and musicians do ain’t bad on record (9)
ENTERTAIN – ENTER (to record) and an anagram (bad) of AINT.

11a Match, for example, that’s not serious (5)
LIGHT – A match is an example of something used to light or ignite; light can also be an adjective meaning not serious.

12a Retain it in memory, mostly, for musical performance (7)
RECITAL – Insert IT into almost all of RECALL (memory).

13a Almost crossing part of Welsh border – we’ll reach it soon (3,4)
NEW YEAR – NEAR (almost) crossing (or having inserted into it) WYE (the river which forms most of the border of England and Wales). The second part of the clue is a cryptic definition which will be out of date by the time this review appears.

14a Inferior to a couple of European articles (5)
UNDER – Split 2, 3, you get UN, the French definite article and DER, the German definite article.

15a Start off sick in this hospital that’s rather crowded? (8)
THICKISH – Remove the first letter (start off) from SICK and insert the remaining letter into THIS (from the clue) and H (hospital).

17d One element or another turned over, with supporting information (8)
NITROGEN – Reverse (turned over) TIN (another element) and OR (from the clue) which should be followed by (supporting) GEN (information).

One Comment

Many thanks for this excellent review, Crypticsue. I have my completed crossword to hand. From what I can discern from all the miniscule notes I made at the time, I had the correct parsing for all but one clue. I made a silly error with 15a and had ‘thickest’ instead of ‘thickish’. No excuse for that!

I enjoyed this puzzle very much. At the time, my fave clue was 9d. It still is. (I just wish the problems there were sorted out so we could go back to getting our favourite puzzles printed off in a size that doesn’t fracture one’s eyesight! Mr Catnap uses a magnifying glass to do the Quickies. (I’ve had no joy trying to enlarge the text on my laptop.))

Times championships Get-togetherNovember 4, 2017 at 11:00 am – 7:00 pmGeorge Inn, The George Inn Yard, 77 Borough High St, Southwark, London SE1 1NH, United KingdomOn finals day, there is an associated get-together in a nearby pub.